The McInerney housing building group is provincial-based and would not be affected by a reduction in investor demand as a result of the Bacon Report's implementation, the company's managing director, Mr Barry O'Connor, said after the annual general meeting yesterday. "From our point of view, our target market is first and second-time buyers and our target buyers are owner-occupiers," he said. Commenting on incidences of gazumping, whereby a developer accepts a higher purchase price than a previously verbally-agreed one, Mr O'Connor said he would not like to see the industry get a name for the practice.

"There is talk that the building industry will bring out a code of ethics of its own," he said. Reporting almost a trebling of profits to £3.35 million in 1997, from £1.22 million in 1996 "due to the present good Irish economic conditions", McInerney's chairman, Mr Roy Ferris, said that a "modest" 1p dividend was proposed, appropriate for the group's growth phase. "By retaining earnings, we can further increase future profitability," he said. Mr Ferris added that recommendations to release development land had to be successful if the Bacon strategy were to work. "An adequate supply of services must also be made available to enable orderly development of our major cities and towns at all times," he said.

The company is currently involved in developments in Cork, Tipperary, Clare, Kilkenny, Waterford and Dublin.